During the process of production of cigarette packs, the packs that are rejected by the packaging machines due to not meeting the previously established quality standards are usually conveyed to a storage bin located at the machine's rejection station.
At present, the process used to recover the cigarettes contained in the soft cup type packs is a manual process, that is, there is no equipment to perform neither the opening of the packs nor the inspection nor reclaiming of the cigarettes contained therein.
In the manual cigarette reclaiming process, the individual in charge of performing the task displaces himself or herself to the packaging machine's rejection station, picks up the storage bin with the rejected packs, and takes the same to an inspection location, where the rejected packs are placed in one other storage bin, whereupon the empty storage bin is returned to the rejection station.
On returning to his or her work location, the individual opens the packs manually one by one, stripping therefrom the tax stamp, the polypropylene film, the label housing and the aluminum foil lining. Subsequently, the employee performs a visual inspection of a group of cigarettes previously contained in the pack. The cigarettes that such individual deems not to meet the quality standards are stored in a cardboard bin.
When the inspection location storage bin is empty, the employee collects from the machine another storage bin full of packs to be opened, and continues to perform the process.
The tasks described above are performed repetitively until the cardboard box is filled with cigarettes, whereupon the cigarettes are returned to the production process.
The manual process has some unsatisfactory aspects, among which there may be pointed out the shortcomings in terms of quality, the productivity limitations and the high costs involved.
The quality-related shortcomings are strongly present in the manual process, since the result of the cigarette inspection is dependent upon a subjective analysis of the individual that performs the same. As a rule, the individual withdraws all the cigarettes from the pack and inspects the same visually all together at once.
Productivity is limited in the manual process, since that depending on the packaging machine and the quality of the raw materials, the rejection level is subject to variance. Since the quantity of rejected packs increases in proportion to an increase in the speed of the packaging machine, the individuals in charge of inspecting the cigarettes are unable to keep up with such variance, entailing an accumulation of debris, deterioration of the rejected packs and being detrimental to the organization of the manufacturing sectors. Thus, in order to solve this problem, the speed of the packaging machine is reduced.
The costs involved in the manual process are quite high, due to the requirement of a large quantity of direct and indirect labor, and the cigarette recovery rates are limited, which increases the raw material and product costs.